Other People's Recipes: West African Peanut Soup

    I thought it was going to be a long time before something replaced the roasted tomato soup I've been making as my soup obsession. I was wrong. But I can't claim the credit for my new fixation.
     We're cookbook readers in my house. Myself most of all, but Wife will pour through different tomes of recipes over breakfast, and the kids like to go through and imagine what it will be like when they are old enough to make molten chocolate cakes and bacon wrapped meats without anyone hovering over them providing moderation. My favorite is "The Joy of Cooking." It's dependable, instructive, and thorough. Though (at least according to the Meryl Streep film "Julie and Julia,") the recipes in the original "Joy" were hardly tested compared to the cookbooks of real chefs, I have found it invaluable as a starting point for nearly everything, and as somebody who really likes tinkering with the recipes I make, a starting point is all I need. Boy and Girl are both drawn to the holiday cookbook Mother-in-Law got us for Christmas, with vibrant pictures that really sell the food. But it is Wife who started the latest obsession--Cooking Light. She bought one of their magazines simply because we were trying to eat healthier, but I have come to appreciate the publication on its own merits. So many "healthy" recipes cut out any sense of flavor, but Cooking Light recipes have never disappointed me. I enjoy their recipes enough that when I saw a giant anthology collection at the public library, I knew I had to check it out.

Tilapia Pouches with Squash and Tomato

I'm pretty terrible at cooking fish.  Every time I cook it on the stove, it breaks apart.  Things are doubly bad on the grill.  It's a delicate meat, and I am not a delicate cook.  For a long time, my solution to this problem was the easiest one;  I didn't cook fish.  Of course, I could have just banged away at it, and I'm sure I would have gotten a handle on it soon enough, but while Wife is tolerant of the average screw-up in the kitchen, she isn't enough of a fish fan to try faulty flounder.  Not wanting to ruin everyone's dinner, I stayed away from fish each time I went to the store, at least since my attempt at crispy battered cod the summer before last turned into a paste that smelled like cat's breath.  I like a good piece of fish, but not enough to face down a horde of angry diners when I'm not on point. 

At least not until I heard about pouch cooking.  I was familiar with it from camping, of course, but somehow I'd never made the logical leap to the oven.

If you're not aware, you can cook any number of meats and/or vegetables together in sealed foil pouches; providing you've found the right balance of ingredients, they will come out of the oven as little bundles of perfectly cooked individual dinner portions, steamy and aromatic.

Chicken Curry

As I've reiterated over the last three or four posts, I don't mind eating vegetarian.  Wife, although not the biggest fan of vegetables in the past, has been so dedicated to getting into shape that meatless meals were easy to commit to.  In the end, it was the children who were the most resistant to eating dinner without meat, so when Lotus and her son left our house the last week of May, I wasn't surprised when Boy requested meat be on the menu.  However, I was surprised when he asked for curry.

Curry was a staple of our menus when Lotus was living with us; we made it two to three times a month, and there were always leftovers.  But Boy had fallen in love with the dish, and he wanted to see how it would taste without the presence of his dreaded nemesis, tofu.  More specifically, he wanted to try it with chicken, a request I was more than happy to oblige. 

Quick Bite: The BFD at Q's

Usually, I don't write about restaurants unless I have the opportunity to give a full review.  This is a time intensive and expensive process, because I don't feel I can accurately describe what a restaurant is like unless I've tried at least three or four items on their menu.  For instance, I had to scrap a would be review of Salt Tears Coffee House and Noshery simply because (after a decadent breakfast with the wife,) I haven't been able to afford to go back for lunch, and now that I can I don't really remember what I intended to say about the first meal.  Apart from some meager ad revenue everytime somebody clicks on the links littering the corner of these pages, I don't profit from doing this, so reviews have to take a backseat to everything else; they're really just bonus content whenever I am lucky enough to be in the position to go out to eat a bunch, and that hasn't been much of a thing lately.

Vegetarian Stuffed Peppers

We'd finally gotten into a rut.  As I've mentioned on this blog already, friend of the family Lotus and her son have been staying with us for the past month and a half, and to save wear and tear on the oven as well as the budget, it was easier to plan meals as a joint unit instead of seperately.  This has meant that, apart from the lunch meat I take to work and a bit of smoked salmon on Mother's Day, we have effectively turned into vegetarians.  Now, I've said it before.  I like vegetarian food.  While many people find it restrictive, I actually think I am a more creative cook when I can't rely on meat to supply its flavor to whatever I am cooking.  That being said, this past week I hit a wall when it came to menu planning.  Black bean burgers were on the menu for a third time.  I'm growing to dread the sight of any form of noodle EXCEPT ramen.  Without revisiting Asian flavors Wife could do without or breaking her calorie budget, I'd pretty much exhausted every meatless recipe on Eating Well, Epicurious, Simply Recipes, and the other websites I visit for inspiration (not to mention traditional cookbooks.)  That's when I remembered it.  Catfish's Dishes.  Not this blog, but the ink-stained source material.  In the cabinet where I keep all of my cookbooks is a tiny notebook, lightly tan in color to emphasize how recycled it is.  It was part of a three pack I recieved one Christmas, and I think it was meant to hold poetry or personal musings.  Instead, I wrote recipes.  Just a handful; I didn't know much at the time.  The children were still toddlers, Wife was still Fiancee, and I knew plenty about cooking improvisationally, but I didn't have many recipes of my own.  There was a chili recipe that I still use to this day, and a chicken enchilada recipe that I most certainly don't...and then there was several pages of vegetarian recipes.  I pulled the book out and began looking for an idea to set me free.  Deep-Fried Tofu with Mashed Potatoes and Mushroom Gravy looked good, but doesn't fit Wife's diet.  Green Tofu Enchiladas ceased to be a possibility when the local Winco stopped carrying tomatillos. (Edit: This was only temporary. The tomatillos are back.)  Several others were shoddy things that should probably never see the light of day; edible at the time but not worth writing about.  What stood out, though, were the stuffed peppers.  I used to make them all the time when we were vegetarian.  I made them because I'd always liked my mom's stuffed peppers, but I have to say that the traditional beef-and-rice filling doesn't interest me as much ever since I came up with this stuffing mix.  The original recipe called for couscous, and you can substitute it if you prefer, but I have started using quinoa instead  because it has a much higher nutritional content.